Can we quit comparing this "game" to WoW.

That is the problem with MMOs now, everything has to be compared to the "king" of MMOs.

What we should be asking is "What will this game's payment model be?" and "Will it be good enough to justify it?" Me personally, I think TES is better off as a Single player franchise, so no matter how good this game is, it will not justify being an MMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjoMQJf5vKI

I agree with pretty much everything you said here, but I have to correct you on something. Rift is still P2P and is doing pretty well for itself, their expansion pack did well and they're showing no signs of going F2P like SW:TOR did anytime soon. They're one of the rare subscription games that are managing to do well, because unlike SW:TOR the game is actually pretty good. They went the total WoW clone route, but they did it well and the game is so polished that its working for them. Has just enough uniqueness from WoW to keep a loyal playerbase too.

Why are you here? Honestly. The OMG TES DOESN'T BELONG IN AN MMO people should just go away, you will impact nothing and your input is worthless if that is all you offer. Its bad enough we have to deal with the crowd that wants the game to be a crappy F2P.

And WoW is the hands down best comparison unfortunately (seriously unfortunate), so you'll hear it alot, especially since people are expecting alot of what WoW has brought onto the genre over the years. Thankfully to me TESO is looking like its own beast altogether with parts of alot of different games and I can't wait for it.

Honestly, I'm not sure how to take that statement.. EU + NA are what.. a good 20+ countries? vs. 1 country. So yes. I could go overboard and suggest you're saying the EU and NA need to combine their forces in order to beat China at everything.

3.2 million players in china vs.

3 million in U.S. and Canada

China is #1 on the list of subscribers, not sure why you'd try and add other countries to the list.. I don't even want to begin to understand why you have that kind of logic either, really don't want to cross into the realm of racism, never really saw the point.

So, you are saying that a game has to be a WoW clone to do well, and if it tries to break away completely and make its own mark, it will fall?

And one MMO should not be compared to another, especially in the payment method department. Great games can be F2P or B2P, a Game DOES NOT have to be P2P like WoW to be Great, and the graphics on that game are cartoony, and it is old, time to move on.

I don't know if I have it in me to engage another P2P hater right now. Just going to taper off with a "you're wrong here" and pretend like you never responded to me about how you're not after that, even though I know you are and I know you will.

I am just saying that ESO should NOT have to compete or beat WoW. If the game does well enough for itself (Like SW:toR has not shut down yet, GW 2 and its B2P model, or-ugh-Secret World and it's unique atmosphere) Why does it HAVE to be compared to WoW in terms of how it is doing.

IT is like you all want this game to compete with WoW, which is okay, because I wont be playing if this game does come out as WoW-model payment.

Not talking about me, i hope.

You might have 1600+ posts, but you're obviously new here. Let me clear up some stuff for you.

I agree 110% that TESO should not compete with, and should not even try to beat WoW. It will be a better game for being its own thing and not trying to topple anyone or live in anything's shadow. You're talking to the wrong hombre about who wants what when it comes to WoW vs. TESO.

And comparisons with similar things help us along in discussions however. What do you want to compare TESO to if not another MMO?

Also, failed MMOs don't get shut down, they get made F2P. That's one of about a dozen reasons I want TESO to be P2P at launch, because if the game is as good as I feel it will be right now by everything I've seen and heard on the game, it'll do great and won't fail and be forced to go down the F2P path like SW:TOR, which make no mistake is a failure of a game.

Games that launch F2P have an overall lesser quality than P2P, and I want nothing more than the best for TESO.

And you say that because you LOVE the P2P payment method. which in my opinion makes the problem that too many people think ti will be great.

I admit, I think SW:toR is not great, but I like the atmosphere and the stories for the classes, which is a big plus and keeps me subbed to it.

Nah, brah. I don't love paying money every month. I'm broke as hell. I just understand that there's more to an MMO than just omg playing the game. There's upkeep every month that has to be made if you want the game to run a certain way, and I like the game to run tip-top shape.

If SW:TOR was a better game, more people would have subbed to it and kept it going like a well oiled machine. Tip-top shape.

And the reason that few people did, was not because it failed, but because the game was fully voiced, new territory for an MMO that caused the problem. IF another company was designing it, that would not have been in there.

and what would you consider a better game? one that is not F2P? or is not an experimental fully voiced one?

and who knows what the payment model will be. Maybe they will choose to start off as B2P or F2P with sub option to see how it is recieved...

Uh, you honestly think being fully voice acted killed SW:TOR? TESO is fully voice acted, too. Guess we's boned.

And no, sorry, but failed MMOs don't "shutdown", there's no reason to shut them down when you can just abandon ship 90% of the way and open up a cash shop and make the game F2P. It'll continue to generate small doses of cash, and cost you pretty much nothing. Sounds familiar, right?

With that said though, smaller games are smart to go F2P from the get go, because they don't have or don't want to spend the funds to make the game larger and higher quality, and they can succeed because there was less expectation from the developers and shareholders, thus more profit and no failure.

Just thought I'd throw in there that the reason SW:TOR died was because of the lack of endgame content.

And for all you know, Bioware may have wanted to go the way they are now from the start, but did P2P because they wanted to see how it would be recieved.

and why did they not have "endgame content"? money was spent on the voice overs and Bioware Austin might not have had a whole lot of money for the game to begin with.

SW:toR is not on the level of WoW in success, but I would hardly consider it a failure.

Judging by the complete and utter decimation and backlash they suffered, I'd say they had no idea what the hell was going on and were completely floored and would have had a backup plan to deal if P2P went bad for them from the get go.

Star Wars, while not my cup of tea, is a gigantinormous franchise name and they had an absurd budget for the game. They chose poorly in a few design aspects, and I assume severely underestimated the voracious MMO community's ability to devour content at a ridiculous rate.

and there was no way to know how people would have received it, so they would have high hopes for it. But like I said, it is not great, but hardly a failure except when compared to the one MMO that has the market on MMOs.

If I want TES lore, i would read up on it. I would not P2P a game that, while sounding good, could easily go the way of SW:toR in time.

If he is, he shouldn't be, because the Old Republic was a WoW clone as well. It had a serious lack of endgame content, but the basics of the combat are the same derivative '30+ abilities that you'll barely use' tripe that WoW pulled from older games, and what might as well be an exact copy of vanilla's WoW's talent system for the warrior, priest, and rogue.

That said, the idea that the full VA was somehow experimental or a cause of tOR's problems is fairly ridiculous. Full voice acting is easy if you have the budget for it (which TOR did, and they did recoup that cost). The problem was their entire model was WoW + Star Wars + big budget = profit, and they put nothing in the game beyond that, beyond a really terrible companion and crafting system. A lot of people jumped from WoW to Rift to pass the time until tOR's release (most of the commentary I caught in Rifts starting zones during launch were people repeating that ad nauseum between rift events), and going from WoW to WoW clone to yet another WoW clone just killed interest. Plus tOR was utter garbage after the chapter I class stories, and you could see the planetary populations fall off past Alderaan, despite the completely linear railroad of planet to planet questing.

But tOR's failure and Rift's success isn't evidently a function of their payment model. It is entirely up to game design, and being able (or failing) to pull people in. What tOR proved was a big license isn't enough.

I can compare SW:TOR to a few MMOs and it'd still come out as a total bomb, dude. Boom Rift. Boom EVE. Boom headshot. Even EQ just finally went F2P recently after all these years. SW:TOR couldn't cut it a year, broseph.

It still has quite a loyal fanbase. he is saying that the game has to have millions of players to be a success, when it does not.

millions of players does not always = a good game bro.

it may have failed as P2P, but it is succeeding as a F2P with sub model game.

I do not compare MMOs because games are different.